Flames beat Wild to move into first place

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (Ticker) - Miikka Kiprusoff and the Calgary
Flames enjoyed another trip to Minnesota.

Kiprusoff made 38 saves and Daymond Langkow and Craig Conroy
provided the necessary scoring as the Calgary Flames defeated
the Minnesota Wild, 2-1, on Sunday.

Brent Burns had a chance for the Wild in the final seconds as he
circled around the net, but Kiprusoff reached out with his left
pad to stop the defenseman's stuff attempt just before time
expired.

"He's made huge saves for us at key times," Langkow said of his
netminder. "We couldn't ask anything more than that."

The Flames won for the second time in three tries in Minnesota
and have been victorious in five of the six meetings this
season. The win moves Calgary into first place in the Northwest
Division, one point ahead of the Wild and two better than the
Vancouver Canucks.

Calgary has won four straight games in regulation, all against
Western Conference opponents. The Flames trailed the Wild by
six points heading into Tuesday but have gained seven points in
the standings in the past six days while going 4-0-0.

"It been an enjoyable week," said captain Jarome Iginla, who
assisted on Langkow's goal. "(Kiprusoff) has played real well
all year, but he's been pretty much unbeatable this week."

The Flames opened the scoring at 12:35 of the first period with
their seventh power-play goal in the last eight games. Langkow
deflected Iginla's pass at the top of the crease past goaltender
Niklas Backstrom.

"(Iginla) and I talked, as the two guys down low, that if we had
the chance to just fire it across the crease and catch them off
guard," Langkow said. "It (Iginla's pass) was right on my
tape."

Conroy scored the eventual game-winner with 6:08 left in the
second period, firing a wrist shot into the upper left corner
while on a 2-on-2 break.

"We knew (the Wild) were going to come right out after us, but
we started to feel a lot better in the second," Conroy said.

The Wild had a great opportunity moments before Conroy's goal,
when Kiprusoff stopped Pierre-Marc Bouchard on a breakaway.

Minnesota had more than five minutes of power-play time at the
end of the second period, and finally broke through in the third
period. Mark Parrish knocked home his own rebound on the power
play just 38 seconds into the final session.

It was not enough as the Wild suffered their third straight
loss.

"You've got to come up with wins and we're just not finding a
way to do that right now," Parrish said. "It's frustrating when
the work ethic is there."

It was Parrish's first goal after celebrating the birth of his
daughter on Tuesday.

Kiprusoff shut down the Wild the rest of the way, including a
big save on Branko Radivojevic with 15 minutes remaining.
Kiprusoff has a 1.70 goals-against average in 26 career starts
against the Wild.

"(Kiprusoff) played great and we expect a guy like that to play
at that level," Parrish added.

The Flames elected to play conservatively with the lead,
managing only 11 shots in the final two periods. But Kiprusoff
frustrated the Wild by making 17 saves in the second period and
13 in the third.

"After they got the goal early in the third period, we played
smart again, like we've been doing lately," Kiprusoff said.

Minnesota's Backstrom faced just 16 shots.

"We've played three division leaders (this week) and luckily
we've been able to beat them all," Conroy said.